Sumer is icumen in

...lhude synge the hamesculing mum, "Get thee outside!  Now!  Don't be icumen back in until you've played out there for a while!"

Ahem.  Sorry.  I'm not exactly Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog.

Today is the first day of our "summer break."  The scare quotes are there because (a) it's barely spring, and (b) we only sort of take a break in the summer.  Oscar (finishing second grade) will  drop all the "subjects" and continue with spelling and math, each only twice a week.   He also will work through a "50 States" workbook in preparation for American History beginning in the fall.  Milo (pre-k) will finish up the Saxon Math K, which is tied to the calendar, in June, and after that he will only work on phonics.  I elected not to teach any new Latin over the summer, but we'll drill on it once a week so we don't forget what we've learned.

I rearranged my days for the summer, too, to keep the kids outside when the sun's low and inside when it's high:

Morning is for outings:  clean up breakfast;  pack a snack; be gone a couple of hours and come home for lunch.  I'm envisioning a lot of trips to the local playgrounds and parks.

Early afternoon is  "inside time," for stories, chores, light schoolwork, and indoor play.

We have tea/snack sometime between 3 and 4.

After tea is "back yard time."  They have to go outside and not come in until Mark gets home.

So far so good.  We had a bit of a wrench thrown into our schedule because the kids were all exposed to chicken pox a couple of weeks ago.  No spots yet, but the potential contagiousness has already kept us out of music class and postponed one long-planned playdate.

But today?  Great. 

My biggest problem right now is that I'm overusing videos during the day, especially for Milo (who's 4).  I have a hard time keeping him out of trouble while I'm concentrating on teaching his older brother, at the same time that I've also got Mary Jane to manage.  As a result, Milo's getting at least an hour a day of screen time.  That is more than I really want him to have.   I allay my feelings of rottenness a bit by showing him a lot of edu- and quasi-edu-videos (Signing Time, nature shows, The Electric Company), but I'd really like to cut everybody back to one video a couple times a week.  With exceptions for rainy days or illness or... a chance to sit and talk to my husband for a little while without being interrupted, maybe.

Sigh.   Maybe I could just start by saying "No movies on Mondays."  And then I could expand it to Tuesdays.  And so on.  I wonder if I would learn how to cope.  It's more about disciplining myself than disciplining them.  As is most of parenting, I have noticed.

Comments

[mrsdarwin]

How hot is it there? I'd love to kick the girls out to the back yard in the afternoons, but it's been in the high 90s. The heat has been interferring with our morning walks as well, so we've had the same problem with too much tv.

[bearing]

Hot? Not. It's been 45 to 60 mostly, and is just starting to break the seventies. We might hit 80 this weekend, depending on when the thunderstorms roll thru.

It doesn't get terribly hot here. So my only summer concern is too much sun, not really overheating.

[mrsdarwin]

Hot? Not. It's been 45 to 60 mostly

Oh man. Time to pack up and move north...